In A Cycle Superhighway In The Sky

The high ambition on the part of successive London Mayors since 2008 to create a network of (mostly) segregated cycleways across London has often been controversial and often impeded due to differences arising with individual boroughs.

Cyclists, please put me right if I have got any of this this wrong but I think there are now eight operational routes:

CS1 – Tottenham to the City

CS2 – Aldgate to Stratford

CS3 – Barking to Tower Gateway

CS3 (East-West) – Lancaster to Tower Hill

CS5 – Oval to Pimlico

CS6 – North-South – Farringdon to Kings Cross (Consultation started on 20 September 2018 on an extension to CS6 between Farringdon and King’s Cross, so that it will run from Elephant & Castle all the way up to King’s Cross.)

Works to convert road carriageways to a cycleway do not amount to development requiring planning permission if they fall within section 55(2)(b) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990: “the carrying out on land within the boundaries of a road by a highway authority of any works required for the maintenance or improvement of the road but, in the case of any such works which are not exclusively for the maintenance of the road, not including any works which may have significant adverse effects on the environment“.

“...whether the proposals cause significant adverse environmental effect is not for the court to decide. As Sullivan J (as he then was) said in R v Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council ex parte Milne [2001] 81 P&CR 27 at [106] to [108] the issue of environmental effect is an issue which requires an exercise of planning judgment which is not for the court. The issue for the court is whether the defendant erred in its contention or was irrational in reaching the conclusion that the works for the EWCS did not cause significant adverse environmental effect and did not require planning permission. For reasons that I have set out I am satisfied that the defendant on the evidence before it at the relevant time, did not err in law and was not irrational in reaching its conclusion that there was no significant adverse environmental effect from the proposals as a whole.”

Whether or not planning permission is required, on the facts, for any proposed cycleway, traffic regulation orders are required. Where the road is part of the local highway network rather than a TfL road, TfL needs the agreement of the relevant borough in order to secure all necessary orders. This was what of course recently scuppered TfL’s proposed pedestrianisation of Oxford Street.

The TfL road network:

Westminster City Council has also now successfully challenged TfL’s proposed construction of CS11, designed to run between Swiss Cottage and Portland Place, in R (City of Westminster) v Transport for London (Sir Ross Cranston, 13 September 2018), having taken over proceedings commenced by a group of local residents. Two parts of the route are on roads for which Westminster City Council is the statutory highway authority. Planning permission from the council is also potentially required for works proposed within Regent’s Park. The Council succeeded in its claim that TfL’s decision to proceed with constructing part of the route should have taken into account the legally relevant consideration that TfL might fail to obtain the necessary consents from Westminster City Council in relation to part of the route. TfL’s justification had assumed that the route would be constructed in its entirety and did not consider whether a phased approach would be viable.

It’s difficult entirely to blame the Mayor for these delays in rolling out CS routes. The control held by individual boroughs can be difficult to work around – RBKC having been another particularly intransigent authority – which makes delivery of these, by definition, cross-borough schemes slow and difficult.

Despite the wider strategic benefits of cycling in terms of health and air quality, the TRO statutory process can often be seen by local people as inadequate to protect their particular interests in relation to, for instance, the effects caused by displaced traffic or the implications for them of roads being closed to motor vehicles – leading to adversarial positions being taken.

But whatever the rights or wrongs in relation to CS11 or indeed in relation to the proposed pedestrianisation of Oxford Street, I find it disappointing to see such public disagreements between the Mayor and Westminster City Council. After all, no one wants a London version of the Gallagher brothers.